Rogue ass jailed in Egypt. (RTÉ)
Palin lookalike strippers to strut in pageant. (AP)
RIAA appeals mistrial in file-sharing case. (CNet)
Its native tongue facing extinction, Native American tribe teaches the young. (International Herald Tribune)
Bee Gees song Stayin’ Alive helps doctors perform CPR. (The Daily Telegraph)
Your bottled water may be no purer than tap. (Lifehacker)
Space smells of steak, says Nasa. (The Sun)
I used to do a daily list of links, but that fell by the wayside for some reason. Consider this a restart.
Skippy on the menu as Australia seeks to fight global warming. (Bloomberg; for the record, kangaroo meat isn’t bad)
Suit against God tossed over lack of address. (AP/MSNBC.com)
Consumption of psychoactive drugs by Tiwanakuan mummies. (Anthropology.net)
Crate expectations: 12 shipping container housing ideas. (Treehugger)
What your home and workspace say about your politics. (Lifehacker)
The music alliance pact. (UnaRocks)
Nerd rage. (1,000 Tiny Things I Hate)
Forget subprime mortgages, it was bin Laden. (The National)
Choir mistress pays hospital parking fine in 3,500 pennies. (The Daily Telegraph)
Picture: Frédéric Vincent
Two English professors are convinced they know the true reason behind the prehistoric monument: It was a healing centre to attract pilgrims from across Europe.
Geoffrey Wainwright and Timothy Darvill
said the key to their theory was Stonehenge’s double circle of bluestones — a rare rock known to geologists as spotted dolomite — which lie at the centre of the monument.
The theory is based on the large amount of flakes of this rock, which has been found in tombs across the area. The tombs also contained bones showing signs of injury or disease.
It doesn’t ring true for me. That’s not to say the two aren’t right — after all, they’re the ones who’ve studied the thing and I’m just a history student — but to make the leap from rocks in tombs to European pilgrimage centre is vast, to say the least; if they have evidence that the dolomite, which was mined in Wales, is found in tombs across Europe, or if DNA analysis of the remains hinted that the bodies were of people from the continent, the news reports are silent. EDIT: I’ve found an article on the Daily Telegraph website stating that teeth were analysed and show half of the nearby bodies were of people “not native” to the local area (although it doesn’t state if they are continental in origin).
Wainwright
said the bluestones were prized for their healing properties — as evidenced by the small mountain of flakes the scientists uncovered during their dig.
Maybe they just thought the dolomite was pretty, or perhaps it had some trade value. Future archaeologists will see all sorts in our graves. It doesn’t mean our grave goods were believed to have some healing power.
Like all good researchers of prehistory, the pair agree that the site could have had other uses, perhaps as a religious centre.
I find myself wondering if my (I stress non-hostile) opposition to Wainwright and Darvill is the manifestation of a desire for Stonehenge to remain unexplained, or at least to have a more imagination-catching explanation. But this doesn’t seem to ring true, either. In all likelihood, far too much time has passed for a definitive reasoning to be established. It’s still fun to speculate, though.
Feliberto Carrasco, 81, shocked his family and friends at the weekend when he woke up at his wake. He had been found limp and cold and so his loved ones made arrangements with a funeral home in the town of Angol, Chile.
The man who “rose from the dead” said he was not in any pain, and only asked for a glass of water.
Local radio also surprised listeners by announcing a correction to Carrasco’s death announcement, saying the news had been premature.
I’m living in a desert and yet I have the worst cold I’ve had in a year. Friendly neighbourhood pharmacist to the rescue… with tablets the overdose manifestations of which range from depression to euphoria to death. Mmm, tasty.
UPDATE: And just to add to the fun, today is the day the company has decided to take headshot photos of all employees. The red and runny nose makes for a winning portrait, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Scientists have made ordinary human skin cells take on the chameleon-like powers of embryonic stem cells, a startling breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical payoffs of embryo cloning without the controversy.
The “direct reprogramming” technique avoids the swarm of ethical, political and practical obstacles that have stymied attempts to produce human stem cells by cloning embryos.
Scientists familiar with the work said scientific questions remain and that it’s still important to pursue the cloning strategy, but that the new work is a major coup.
There is a catch with the new technique. At this point, it requires disrupting the DNA of the skin cells, which creates the potential for developing cancer. So it would be unacceptable for the most touted use of embryonic cells: creating transplant tissue that in theory could be used to treat diseases like diabetes, Parkinson’s, and spinal cord injury.But the DNA disruption is just a byproduct of the technique, and experts said they believe it can be avoided.